Washington-Islamabad security dilemma
Photo: pakistanisforpeace.wordpress
The end of the cold war naturally expedites Washington to put on the crown of world politics unilaterally although a set of actors were mounting up from Asia especially China and India with their soft power i.e., the power to attract culturally and to get something done with attraction rather than compulsion. The intention of super powers is, as it was and perhaps will be, to stretch out the ascendancy all over the world and indubitably the US is no exception who sets a policy strategy for Asia fetching Pakistan closer both politically and diplomatically. Pragmatically, Pakistan has been chosen as an alter ego of America for the geo-strategically best suited playground to maximize the payoff of US in Asia for almost sixty years with very little ups and downs in relation. The diplomatic relation of US with Pakistan dates back to October 20, 1947 and since then it was in essence manifested on the US economic and military backing to Pakistan giving $3.5 billion in economic assistance during 1952-67. The Washington-Islamabad relation was so convivial during the Baghdad Pact (1955-1979) as the "most-allied ally" in Asia which faced a drawback during the Indo-Pakistan War in 1965 as the US staved herself off of helping Pakistan. The Washington-Islamabad envious relation, however, turned into skirmishes which finally led to the breaking of consanguinity between these two countries when US troops killed Laden in the pivot area of Islamabad without pre information to the Pakistani government. Let us shed light on the two statements given by Obama within a year. In December 2009, President Obama stated "in the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly, those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect and mutual trust." This symbolizes the possible rapport between these two uneven countries. But this statement was belied by the recent speech of Obama on May 29, 2011 about the Laden issue when he said, "we would augment the number of troops if our troops were hindered by the Pakistani military forces in the Laden mission." Most evidently, the post-cold war period was highly insecured by the cataclysm of Al-Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden which expressed its "power to destroy" on September 11, 2001. This ambush on the supremacy of US substituted the 'war on terrorism' for the "war on al-Qaeda" as soon as the Barack Obama took power. But as George W. Bush made mistake since he was more belligerent to invade Afghanistan and Iraq rather than going to kill or capture the leader of Al-Qaeda, paradoxically this opportunity had been very nicely taken by the destroying group of Al-Qaeda who continued their killing mission smoothly as they found no visible target on them except "mere words" declared by the then President George W. Bush who wanted Osama bin Laden "Dead or Alive" after the demolition of the Twin Towers in New York. With the killing of Laden, however, the world has entered into the "Post-Laden World Order," which showed us how the good rapport between US and Pakistan brings on the wane. But what can be the changing geo-political strategies of Bangladesh in this embryonic "Post-Laden World Order"? Should Bangladesh pursue pro-Russian policies as the physical distance between US and Bangladesh is approximately 12679 kilometers? Or does the US matter of our concerns in spite of this sheer physical distance? What we need to take into account to answer in these questions is that the foreign policy presently does not shaped by the sheer physical distance. The powerful actors can actuate the satellite actors towards them and thus change the policy and their outcome. And thus probably the best choice for Bangladesh is to be gravitated towards US. This gravitational style of thinking is not new as outlined by Alan K. Henrikson, a Harvard graduate political scientist. He said that it was more common in Europe during the era of Louis XIV. In the later Napoleonic period, too, when small and nominally independent states - Batavian, Helvetic, and Ligurian Republics - were built into a kind of geopolitical "armillary sphere" with France because of the supremacy of France, unlike, in the middle, these were "satellites." A connotation of this power-oriented model of international relations between Gulliver and Lilliputian states is that most of the light comes from the center. Likewise, these countries reoriented to and revolve around Germany as French sun now seems to be returning to Germany. Following the defeat of Germany, these Middle European countries, sometimes referred to generically as "the satellites," became reoriented under Soviet bloc rather than Nazi control, and hence "orbited" the Soviet Union. We need to keep in mind that this is the strategic preferences which will be changing in the course of time as the above satellites countries changed their policy from French to Germany, from Germany to Soviet Union to keep pace with the time. The present world is still mostly in the command of US, no matter where it is situated, which established itself as the vanguard of peace and security for itself and for its allies which recently proved by killing the leader of Al-Qaeda. Now we need to find out the 'attributional affinities' with US. But what is in fact the "attributional attributes" of US? The absence of terrorism, consolidating democracy, protecting the human rights, categorically speaking, are the attributes of US which she wants to be institutionalized in the allied countries. But does not these attributes keep up with the attributes of Bangladesh? If does, Bangladesh needs to designing clear-cut steps to curb out terrorism, strengthen democracy from bottom to top and vice-versa, and showing zero-tolerance to the human rights violation either by State agency or political apparatus. To set up the geo-political and geo-strategical relation, we need to mull-over the following questions like which countries do have these attributional affinities in Asia? Do India and Pakistan promise for democracy, human rights protection, and wiping out terrorism? What's about China and Japan? How far these countries keep good understanding with Washington? We need to keep in mind the present volatile relation between US and Pakistan expressed by the recent visit of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on May 27, 2011 when she told Pakistan to take decisive steps and emphasized that Anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories will not end Pakistan's problems. This clearly elucidates that the feelings of Anti-Americanism prevailed in Pakistan is seen by US negatively. So considering this reality, in comparison to Pakistan and India, the latter may be the best political ally for Bangladesh to extract the mutual benefits on a 'win-win situation' debilitating the India-phobia. It's not because Bangladesh is 'devoured by a neighbor' possessing the nuclear weapons with strong hard power, rather it is the geo-strategic preferences, a cluster of strategies compelled by the course of time to pursue. The pro Pak-Russian foreign policy putting less emphasis on US, EU and most importantly the 'burgeoning tigers of Asia' i.e., China, India, Japan will be self destructive in this new "Post-Laden world political conundrum" leading to a chronic adversity in the kismet of Bangladesh. Post-Laden world order will demand to eradicate any sorts of chauvinism and orthodoxy based on religion. Fortunately, Bangladesh is a haven of religious cooperation where a mutual understanding prevails among the heterogeneous people of different religions. This must be protected with a sense of belongingness. Any sort of dogmatism and extremism which put hurdle in the domestic security of Bangladesh must be extinguished with iron hand as the internal security defines how far one country will be treated secured in the international politics, especially to the eyes of international political actors.
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